There was always more than a touch of little-boy imp in Maurice Sendak, which probably goes a long way to explaining the magic he wove with such characters in the books he wrote and illustrated.

Sendak died today in Danbury, Conn., in the wake of a recent stroke. He was 83.

From the early 1960s on, he was staple reading for children. His trilogy of “Where the Wild Things Are,” “In the Night Kitchen” and “Outside Over There” were among his core works. His final book – at least in his lifetime – came in September: “Bumble-Ardy,” which he wrote, and in a departure from his later decades, also illustrated.

Another is due in February.

Sendak’s works were a departure from the fresh-faced, well-behaved kids found in earlier American children’s literature, such as “The Bobbsey Twins.” His kid adventurers were more scamp-like, akin to younger versions of Tom Sawyer. “I’m Pierre – I don’t care!” one of his pint-sized heroes declared.

His best-known work was “Where the Wild Things Are,” winner of a Caldecott Medal in 1964. The hero, a juvenile terror named Max who is exiled to his bedroom by his put-upon mom – with no supper to boot.

Max will have none of it and heads out on an imaginary journey (the best kind, often, especially when you’re a kid:

And he sailed off through night and day
and in and out of weeks
and almost over a year
to where the wild things are.

Mayhem ensues among the wild things, in part because Max is nearly as feral as the critters. And then he returns to the confines, and attendant comforts, of home. Voila, supper is on the table when he arrives.

Few writers have channeled the fevered imaginings of children as well as Sendak. A sometimes prickly character in his own right, he didn’t put kids on pedestals: He saw them for the half-formed creatures that they are, with active interior lives, daydreams that may or may not come true, concerns real and imagined, and occasional rage at their own powerlessness.